Editor’s Note: M. Catherine Thomas, author of Light in the Wilderness, has released a new book entitled The God Seed. It is a must read and Meridian Magazine will be running a series of short excerpts from the text. 

They are they who are priests and kings,
who have received of his fulness, and of his glory;…
Wherefore as it is written, they are gods, even the sons of God.
(D&C 76:56, 58)

I give unto you these sayings…
that you may come unto the Father in my name,
and in due time receive of his fulness.
For if you keep my commandments…
you shall receive grace for grace.
(D&C 93:19–20)

All suns and constellations shower
On thee a light, a life, a power
Which doth array thy sphere.
(Percy Bysshe Shelley)_

Try to be mindful, and let things take their natural course.
Then your mind will become still in any surroundings,
like a clear forest pool.
All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will come to drink at the pool,
and you will clearly see the nature of all things.
You will see many strange and wonderful things come and go,
but you will be still.
This is…happiness.
(Achaan Chah)_

Like the little seedling breaking through the earth, driven by Light toward its full flower, so we unfold, grace by grace, destined for that order of divine beings that populates the eternal worlds. That prospect implies a mighty potential in us, showered as we are by Grace.

In this book we will resort to a couple of metaphors as we try to describe the basically indescribable. We will get our feet wet in the mysteries and science of spiritual development, but we won’t wade in too deeply. We will speak of traveling a path, which in a sense is a good metaphor, but in another sense is false. Because it’s just as true to say that all the potential, all the perception, all the eternal realities are here with us now, just as the full flower is already present in the bud.

And as we speak of traveling a developmental path, which suggests a linear journey, we will know in our hearts that the path to Godhood is not linear. Growth is not predictable, nor is Grace. Whole soul development is uneven, with steps forward, backward, and sideways, always in some degree out of our control:

Spiritual growth is spontaneous. The big events come along unexpectedly, and so do the small ones. A single word can open your heart; a single glance can tell you who you really are. Awakening doesn’t happen according to the plan. It’s much more like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without knowing the finished picture in advance._

Therefore, we can let the process of development unfold from within, opening ourself to the spacious unknown, steering toward the Light, not having to know exactly where we are going, but trusting that there is Someone who does know.

So now we will dip into some recent studies in adult developmental psychology, studies undoubtedly illuminated by the Light of Christ for the latter-day development of His people. These studies reveal that mature adults can activate their greater potential, even in this earthly sphere.

As adults come to understand the workings of their own mind and then undertake exercises to shape their mind into a tool for their own spiritual development, their divine attributes and powers inevitably develop. These exercises include exploring awareness, consciousness, mindfulness, and meditation. Even though some of these areas may be unfamiliar to many readers, they are entirely resonant with scripture and appropriate for greater spiritual development.

Many books have been written about awareness and meditation, with as many reasons and goals for pursuing that kind of training. Millennia of seekers have found these practices to have great value for daily life in general as well as for one’s spiritual life.

But this book has a more focused purpose. It is about undertaking simple practices specifically for coming to Christ, for learning to abide in Him, and for undergoing greater spiritual development in Him.

Moroni teaches the seminal principle:

Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God. (Moroni 10:32)

We learn here that the developmental process, the perfecting process, is to go forward in the Lord Jesus Christ, not out in the lone wilderness of unaided self-effort.

Our minds do not immediately grasp what it would mean to develop in Christ. But on further consulting the scriptures we learn that Christ already dwells in us as a Light-giving and Life-giving Presence, making our physical and spiritual development possible; not only that, but we learn that we already dwell in Him. He is already part of our very being, and in some inexplicable way, we are part of His.

I am the true light that is in you, and…you are in me; otherwise ye could not abound. (D&C 88:50)

We will talk throughout the book of Christ’s indwelling in us, as the apostle Paul describes in Galatians 2:20. But let us first acknowledge a confusion we might face here, because we also teach that “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also” (D&C 130:22). Obviously one physical being cannot inhabit the space of another, so what does it mean?

When Paul speaks of the indwelling Christ, he means that Christ’s Spirit has developed within him. Paul experiences this Spirit as the Lord’s actual, conscious Presence. And that is the sense in which we speak of the Lord’s indwelling in this book, that the Lord’s Spirit is a conscious extension of Himself, an extension of His literal Presence. Sometimes we may see the Spirit as not quite equivalent to the Presence of the Lord Himself; thus we miss the intimate relationship that the Lord does have with us.

The Savior clarifies this indwelling as He says, “When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak” (John 16:13). It seems He is saying that the Spirit is a connecting agent between the Lord and a person, and that the experience with the Spirit is, in fact, an experience with the Lord Himself.

King Benjamin explains that the Lord provides a life-support system in each of us, that life goes forward, breath by breath, through the power of His conscious Presence in us:

Serve him who has created you from the beginning and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another. 
(Mosiah 2:21)

From moment to moment He gives us breath and life. Our real task then is to become aware of Him, to cultivate the seed of His Presence, to experience Him in ourself, and then train our mind to abide in Him. He says,

Abide in me, and I in you…. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. (John 15:4–5)

As we take up simple exercises, we soon learn how unfocused our mind is, how difficult it is to keep it in a spiritual dimension, with life relentlessly pulling at us. Our spiritual intentions are often diluted and defeated in the course of our day. Ah, but we can train our minds to focus so that we might live our ordinary life in Him. We can already sense how that would change the feeling and texture of our life, our sense of being centered and rooted in Someone attentive, loving, and powerful.